What happens with settings after deleting the executable file?

Question

Let's say I made a program that is without installer (only exe file) and its save some data on settings. What will happen if i delete that exe file? Will the settings delete automatically? If no can you give me some suggestions?

Answer 1

Application settings are stored in a file name <exename>.exe.config near the executable file. For example if your executable is MyApp.exe, the configuration file is MyApp.exe.config. So they are stored in different files.

If you change a user-level setting (application-level settings are read-only) and save the settings (Settings.Default.Save()), the changed values are stored in a file named user.config in a subfolder in %LOCALAPPDATA% folder (see this answer for more information). So if you delete the application folder, the changed settings are not deleted.

Answer 2

No, settings won't be removed if you just delete the EXE. Settings also will not be removed by an MSI if they have been modified since the program was installed. A custom action would allow you to remove the file during uninstallation however.

Answer 3

No, it won't.

The settings are stored in a separate file.
The best way is to make an installer/uninstaller.